


Spinning Straw

by faithinthepoor



Series: Once Upon a Time [10]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the episode The Return</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spinning Straw

**Author's Note:**

> In my series this follows my [Fairytale Drabbles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618763), [Mirror Mirror](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618771), [This Provincial Life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618775), [Viviane or Nimue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618809), [Dreams and Wishes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618851), [All the Better To….](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619484), [Magic Keys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619497), [Curiouser and Curiouser](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619514) and [Snow Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620280)

“You’re a sociopath lady, you tried to take away someone that I love, and now I’m going to take away someone you love. I’m taking back my son.”

“If that is what you feel you must do,” the words are not delivered with any of the polite but definite intimidation that is her trademark; they don’t need that kind of delivery. She’s not making a threat. She’s simply acknowledging the reality of the situation.

“You are so fucking infuriating!” Emma doesn’t even bother to keep her voice down. Perhaps Emma has come to realise what an inconsequential pawn Sidney really is.

“I’m infuriating? Why? Because I haven’t responded to your little power play the way you had hoped?” Regina says with a raise of her eyebrow. “Was I meant to tremble at your awesome display of power? Was I meant to just hand Henry over to you?”

“He’s my son,” Emma spits.

“I do realise that he owes his existence to you. It’s hard not to when you feel the need to point it out to me every chance you get.”

“Aren’t you even going to try to tell me that he’s not mine, he’s yours?”

“That seems rather pointless. You referred to him as such when you made your promise to take him from me.”

“Damn you.” Emma clenches her fists in an obvious sign of frustration.

“I thought that was what you were trying to do by taking Henry from me,” Regina keeps her voice even and picks an invisible piece of lint from her skirt.

“Why won’t you fight for him?”

“If you proceed, I will.”

“Then, Madam Mayor, you had better lawyer up because I’m deadly serious.”

“Don’t worry Sherriff Swan I plan to have the best lawyer money can buy.”

“Money doesn’t make you right,” anger burns in Emma’s eyes but there is something else there. Something deeper. Something that Regina doesn’t want to see.

“You want to come at me about right and wrong when you are the one who has accused me of a crime I did not commit and are now going to try and take my son as form of retribution.”

“It’s what you deserve.”

“Really?” Regina allows her face to break into a smile.

“Why are you smiling at me you crazy bitch? I’m serious about this.”

“I know you are.”

“And somehow this is amusing to you?” Emma looks as though she wants to hit her.

“You can come for Henry. You may even win. Somewhere out there there might be a judge who is sympathetic to ex-cons who abandon their children.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“I don’t want to lose him but if I do you will have lost so much more.”

“Excuse me?” Emma looks at her as though she has grown a second head.

“You will have lost the moral high ground my dear,” Regina explains. “You will have used Henry as nothing but a weapon of vengeance and you will never be able to claim that you are better than me again.”

Emma’s shoulders fall but there is still a fire in her eyes, “If you think I would be so bad for Henry why don’t you want to fight for him?”

“I didn’t say you were bad for him and Henry is definitely attached to you. That doesn’t mean I am just going to hand him over, I’ve already told you that if you go for custody I will fight to keep him.”

“But you won’t tell me not to do it?”

Regina narrows her eyes and smiles again, “Is that what you want?”

“What I want,” Emma narrows her eyes to match Regina’s, “is some sort of sign that any of this matters to you.”

“And telling you not to take Henry would be the way to do that?”

“It would be a start.”

“I see.”

Emma raises her arms and then lets them drop, “You won’t do it, will you? You’d rather go to court than admit you want to keep him.”

“Wanting to keep him and asking you to stop are not the same things.”

“But you,” Emma takes a step forward and pokes her finger into Regina’s chest, “could spare Henry the trauma of this being dragged through the courts if you wanted to.”

“So could you,” Regina counters. She looks down at the finger that still presses into her and rather than touching Emma she moves back. “You are the one that started this.”

“No I am not. You started this with your vendetta against Mary Margaret.”

“Tell me what exactly is it that I am meant to have done?”

“You know what you’ve done!” Emma shouts.

“Apparently not or I wouldn’t have to ask.”

“You framed Mary Margaret for murder. You planted evidence and you falsified DNA tests. You tried to get Mary Margaret to escape to make her look guilty. I don’t know if you had Kathryn kidnapped or just used her disappearance to your advantage but I do know that once she resurfaced, and things started to unravel, you got Sidney to confess to cover your crimes.” There is a look of triumph on Emma’s face, as though she believes she has delivered a lay down misere. 

“My I have been busy,” Regina responds calmly. “I wonder where in the world I found the time to do all of that. I need to rest just thinking about it.”

“Just because it’s far fetched doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“I admit that it does sound a little on the fanciful side sheriff.”

“No more fantastic than Sidney Glass orchestrating a series of crimes in order to get reinstated as a reporter.”

“That does seem a little out there as far as motives go,” Regina admits. “Clearly the man is unstable.”

“He could be insane but I suspect he’s simply your puppet.”

“Once again I find myself impressed by the power you seem to think I have over people.”

“I know the power that you can have over people.”

“Because you somehow believe I tried to ruin Mary Margaret’s life?”

“No. Because I know the power that you have over me.”

She feels something dark rise in her at the thought of being able to control Emma, “What power is that?”

“You know what you do to me. You take away all of my reason.”

“Well I do admit that you have been acting like someone without reason.”

“And I don’t want to be like this which is why I want you to stop.”

“What is it that I’m meant to stop exactly?” she asks with a resigned sigh. This is fast becoming tedious. 

“Everything,” Emma cries. “I want you to stop all of the shit. I want you to say that this matters, that we matter, but you never will, will you?”

“This is all just about getting a reaction from me?”

“Yes it is. I would have threatened to leave you but I had to be sure that it was something you’d actually care about.” Emma sounds pathetic and that is something Regina can not tolerate. 

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”

“Some. I also know it wasn’t enough. It didn’t change anything.”

“Was I meant to run into your arms?”

“I don’t know. I just know that things needed to change.”

“You could have just told me that it was over. Really over.”

“I didn’t want it to be over though. I didn’t know how to leave you but now I know I have to. I thought I could do this but I can’t. I won’t stand by and let you turn me into Sidney.”

“What has Sidney got to do with any of this?” she thought Emma understood that Sidney was nothing. The fact that they left him back in the office while having this argument should have shown that his very existence is meaningless.

“He’s in love with you.”

“Is he now?” Regina closes the gap between them. “Does that make you jealous Miss Swan?”

“I’m not jealous of what loving you has turned him into.”

Her mouth goes dry, “You think that I did that to him?”

“You may not have done it on purpose but I fear it’s what happens to someone who is foolish enough to love you.”

“Emma you are not Sidney. You know that I care about you.”

“Perhaps,” Emma says and Regina feels like she has been kicked, “but I also know that caring about me is something that makes you unhappy.”

She grabs the ring around her neck without even realising she has done it. The metal in her hand whispers to her of the promises that she has made. Promises that she can not break. “It’s not you,” she manages to say.

“Oh I know that,” Emma says with confidence.

Regina laughs. A bitter, hollow sound for a bitter, hollow situation. “I’m glad you know that.”

Emma reaches out and strokes her cheek and in spite of herself Regina leans her head into the touch and closes her eyes. “I’m sorry,” Emma says.

“What for?” Regina asks because she honestly isn’t sure.

“That I couldn’t be the one to make things ok for you,” Emma strokes her thumb over Regina’s temple.

“I’m not sure that anybody could.”

“And it’s because you believe that that I never stood a chance. I wish that you could see that you are better than this. Better than the things that you do.”

“I like that you see me that way,” she turns her head and places a kiss to Emma’s palm.

“I sense that there should have been a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.”

“It’s too late for me to be anything other than what I am.”

“I hope that’s not true. I wish good things for you. I’d wish for you find to the person who’s good enough to love you but I don’t think you want that. I don’t think you want to be loved.”

“I tried to let you in. I really did. I tried and I sucked.”

Emma grins and shakes her head at the uncharacteristic turn of phrase, “Not quite how I would have described it but fair enough.”

“I really did want things to go differently.”

“I know. My problem isn’t with you and I, I would never punish you for what went wrong between us. It’s about the other things that you have done. I can’t leave Henry with someone capable of those things.”

“I guess this means I should be calling my lawyer.”

“I guess so.” Emma remains silent for a moment and then places a kiss to Regina’s lips. “Goodbye Regina.”

“Goodbye Emma,” she says after the other woman has gone.

She has managed to get herself out of the frying pan with regard to framing Mary Margaret but somehow she has still lost. A long time ago Snow White took the love of her life and now she has returned to take the only other person Regina has ever had feelings for. There is no punishment strong enough for Snow’s treason but Regina will spend the rest of her life trying to make sure that she pays.

That night Regina sneaks into Henry’s room and watches him sleep. It’s something she used to do all of the time when he was little but somewhere along the way it stopped. It used to calm her battered soul to look at him and know that he was still breathing but nowadays there is no calming her. 

In sleep he looks innocent but when he is awake he claws at the hole in her chest. He lets her know how heartless she is; that even when she loves with all that she has it’s nowhere near enough. She has raised him, nurtured him, kept him safe and he repays her by thinking of her as a monster. It’s the truth but it still hurts.

He clings to a woman he hardly knows. Emma might be his biological mother but she is stranger. Regina wonders if he sees in Emma all the things that she lacks but it may not even be as significant as that. Maybe all he sees in Emma is someone, anyone, who isn’t her. Even before Emma he had taken his first steps down the path to betrayal by worshipping Mary Margaret. 

Regina knows that if he had his choice he would chose the convicted criminal who abandoned him. It should make her question her parenting skills that he is capable of such poor life decisions but mainly it just confirms what she already knows – that everyone will leave her. Even when she magics people to a world that they literally can’t escape from they still find a way to leave her.

She ruffles his hair and places a kiss to his head. She’s not even sure who the kiss is for. It could be the child she has failed but it could equally be for so many other people. For the sheriff she cares for more than she should but will only ever hurt and disappoint. For the stable boy she loved more than anyone in the world whose loss defines her life even though can’t even remember the sound of his voice. For the girl she was, the girl who died when she watched her mother rip the life from the stable boy. 

Maybe the kiss is for all of them. Or maybe it’s for her, the woman that is left behind, the woman who no one will ever kiss and really mean it. She stays in the room and watches Henry sleep knowing that with each intake of breath he is leaving her. That might just be for the best. Clearly she can’t give him what he needs. Maybe if Emma wins, and takes Henry with her, things will better. She won’t have to try and be anything other than what she is – a broken, heartless, worthless void.

Emma’s wrong about her. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be loved. It’s that she’s forgotten how.


End file.
